365 things I learned in my kitchen

Thursday, 13 November 2014

*** the font sizing has gone all over the place in this post. Sorry. *** I recently shopped in the Asian supermarket
in St Gery. This healthy, Asian-style dinner was inspired by Smitten
Kitchen. I fed two of us from the below. It cooks in about 10 minutes, so it's great for a post-work quick supper.

Marinade the chicken slices in the ginger, garlic,
sugar, mirin, soy sauce, chilli and lime juice. You should marinade them for as long as you can, like an hour or two, but 30 minutes is fine.

The chicken, marinating

Cook the noodles in boiling water for the
time recommended on the packet – about 5 minutes. Rince them and keep them
handy.

Heat a little wok oil in a
heavy frying pan and then cook the carrots and onions for a couple of minutes. Then
add in all the chicken and the marinade and cook this for about 3-4 minutes, stirring
all the time, until the chicken is cooked.

The carrots, onion (and chilli) cooking

Check the seasoning and if it’s all good, add the noodles in and heat
these though and then transfer the lot to your serving dishes. Add the
garnish and maybe a little more lime juice.

Thursday, 30 October 2014

I know the ladies over in BFF are on a quest to find the best burger in
Brussels. Likewise, I’ve ended up testing (all in the name of research you
understand) several burger joints around town with some friends*, including Les
Super Filles de Tram, Amour Fou, the Hard Rock Café, and last night we were in
the latest place to open in Brussels, Manhattns,
on Avenue Louise near the Michael Collins.

We got there at 19h, and it was already heaving, and stayed that way
until we left at 20h. It’s quite noisy and dark, but the décor is gorgeous –
yellow and black – with detective comic style graphics, raw brick
walls and solid wooden tables.

Manhattn's Gatsby burger with fries

The place was packed. Brussels' beautiful people were out in
force. There were a lot of good looking young fellas in good suits, so this place
seems to be quite popular with the local legal offices.

When you get there, you should first grab a table and then queue to the
left to order your burger. I was in line for about 10 minutes. You can pick up
copies of the menu or read the fare on the board over the counter. They have the usual beef
burgers, which you can get pink or not pink, and veggie, chicken and salmon
options. The burgers have various toppings including cheese, bacon, sauce and salad extras. I got
the Gatsby burger, which has compté cheese, carmelised onions, sautéed mushrooms and a
truffle glaze. I took the 'godfather' menu option, which includes a soft drink and
fries for around €15.

When you order you get a widget that beeps and lights up when your order
is ready, and you collect it at the hatch on the right hand side of the
counter.

So, the food: the fries come in a cardboard box. They were disappointing
considering we were in the home of fries (Belgium) and in comparison to other
burger places. But the sauce was tangy, so pluses and minuses there. And the main event? Well, the
burger was really good – tasty, meaty, the truffle wasn’t overpowering as it so
often can be, the onion was sweet but I couldn’t taste the mushrooms. It was
messy to eat, but in a good way and the burger didn’t fall apart (very
important) while I was eating. The bread was very good – spongy, absorbent, soft without
disintegrating and crunchy on top.

We were trying to figure out how to order dessert or more drinks should
we want them. The guy who came to collect our dishes said that if we
wanted anything we could ask him (we asked out of curiosity), but seeing as
this was the first time a staff member we saw since we’d ordered, this would
have been a bit difficult!

Will I go back? Yes, I will go back for the burger – less so for the
chips, but I will wait a few months for the hype to die down, as it was
far too packed. I was sitting with my back to the queue and it was a bit
disconcerting to have people permanently behind me while I was eating. My
companions said that the people queuing were staring at our table. We agreed
that they could possibly do with another till for taking orders, which would
help the queue move a bit quicker.

*My lovely friends got back to me and said that they want to be mentioned, so I was out with The Lovely Rose of the Nuetnigenough review, Lovely Friend who came to the Cheese n Wine Sauvages with me, and Lovely Irish Friend.

Sunday, 26 October 2014

I confess that I am a big fan of Buzzfeed,
and when I was sent this list of
hummus recipes, my interest was immediately piqued.

This recipe was there. It is from a
Canadian blog called Once upon a cutting board.

It is delicious. Try it ;-)

Balsamic vinegar and carmelised onion hummus

You will need:

2 onions, sliced into
slivers

About 1 tablespoon of
olive oil

One teaspoon of brown
sugar

Two tablespoons of
balsamic vinegar, or to your taste

Your basic hummus
recipe probably looks something like this:

1 can chickpeas

3 tablespoons
reserved liquid from the can of chickpeas

3 tablespoons tahini
(I regularly don’t have this, I use a slug of olive oil instead)

2-3 garlic cloves
(you can use raw if you have them. I use a couple of ones I roasted a while ago
and keep in a jar of olive oil in the fridge)

the juice of half a
lemon

salt and pepper to
taste

Get a heavy frying
pan and heat the olive oil and then fry the onions for about 20-25 minutes over
a low heat. You should stir them every few minutes to stop them from sticking
to the pan and to get them all evenly cooked. They should be very soft, but not
burnt. Add in the sugar and some of the vinegar and cook these off for another
five minutes or so.

While the onions are
cooking, you can put all the hummus ingredients in a food processor (maybe just
hold back some of the liquids until you see the consistency of the hummus).
Blitz the lot for a minute, scrape everything off the sides if you need to,
check the consistency and add the reserved can liquid or lemon juice if you
want a looser mixture. Blitz the whole lot again until you get the consistency
you want – I like it smooth, so for me, this takes about another two minutes of
blitzing.

Put about ¾ of the carmelised onions into
the food processor with the hummus and blitz this for a minute. Taste the whole
lot together and check it for seasoning – don’t forget that you can add more
balsamic vinegar for flavouring too. When you are happy with the taste, scoop
it out into a bowl and dress it with the reserved onions.

We eat this with brown bread, pita bread,
carrots, cucumbers…

ps: I'm going to try this jalepeno one as soon as I find jalepenos. If you know where I can buy fresh ones, can you let me know?

Friday, 24 October 2014

We all experienced it, I’m sure. Belgian
customer service is well known for being awful, particularly in bars and shops.
I was told in one clothes shop that they “had nothing that would fit” me. I was
a size 14-16 at the time. Not huge by any manner or means. I’ve also been
ridiculed over a mis-pronunciation (in front of a queue of people), despite the fact that I speak very good
French, and a bit of Dutch. For a city that has such a high number of ex-pats
and visitors, people should be given a large benefit of the doubt, particularly when they are making an effort to speak the local language.

The biscuit was taken yesterday. I went
into a small café on Pl Flagey and asked for a “simple espresso”. I just needed to kill a bit of time before I had to be somewhere else. The lady
asked for €1.80 and handed me a small paper cup with my coffee. I asked if it
was possible to have a cup as I wanted to sit down. She told me that I should
have told her that I didn’t want the coffee to go, and that sitting in would
cost me another €0.40 (she also explained that this was to cover the cost of
the cups, and the chairs, and the electricity, and the service).I stupidly began getting the change. She then informed me that if she
transferred my coffee from the paper cup into a real cup, I’d lose the mousse
from on top of the coffee. Her colleague, who seemed to have a bit of common
sense, told her to just make me a new coffee. I was now wondering if I was
going to be charged for this coffee too. I wasn’t, but it was the most awkward
coffee I’ve ever had. I sat down and swallowed the coffee, and stood up again.
I think I paid about one cent for every second my bum graced their seats. Also
needless to say, I’m never going to go back to that café ever again.

There are also the lovely shop assistants,
particularly the lady in the Casa shop at Merode, years ago, who managed to hold it together when I asked her
if she had any more toes (orteil) when I meant to ask for pillows (oreiller).
And the lovely people who bear with me when I don’t know the precise word and
then descend into a long description of what I’m looking for, and details of
what I’m not looking for. We usually get there. Another special mention should
go to the garden centre worker who patiently helped me work out the plant I
wanted to order, based on “it’s red/orange, and it’s long, and its leaves are
like this”.

So, do you have any experiences to share, good or bad? Is this a Belgian thing, or does it happen everywhere?

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

I love the Netherlands. The place is so
nice, the cities are small, manageable and user-friendly, the people are so
nice, the shopping is great. And the food… mmmm. I had the chance to go to
Utrecht last week for a fleeting visit with a friend. We got there just after
lunchtime, so once we’d parked the car, we headed off to get something to eat.
We happened upon Stan & co on Ganzenmarkt and decided to give it a go.

The cheese plate

The place is actually pretty trendy and a
lot of the staff have adopted the hipster look. I loooooove hipsters. So I was
in heaven. The restaurant was large and spacious, with ‘atmospheric’ lighting.
The staff all spoke English and they even had a menu in English. The kitchen is
on view at the back of the restaurant. I’d say the place is very popular with
students, particularly at night although when we were there (mid week,
lunchtime), there were a good mixture of ages and walks of life.

The chicken wings

We were in more of a picky mood rather than
looking for actual dishes, so we ordered a selection of the sharing dishes –
chicken wings, bitterballen, the bread selection, dried ham and cheese, and a
selection of cheeses. And, of course, a couple of beers (Vedette. You can take
the girl out of Belgium). The dishes all came with dips and spreads such as tapenade, apple jam and mustard. The service was very good and the food was really
excellent. I highly recommend the bitterballen!

Follow me on Twitter

About Me

Hello! I'm Katie, and I've been living in Belgium for about ten years. Belgian food is delicious, but sometimes you just need something that reminds you of home. Finding this can pose a problem in Belgium, so I often make this from scratch. I don't grow our own or milk cows or anything like that, but I do cook with food that my grandmother would recognise.
I also love Asian and Indian food and I often make this too (it’s the only way to guarantee you get the spiciness you need!). I try to cook low-fat, although some things I just refuse to meddle with (such as sticky toffee pudding). I'll be blogging about my kitchen (mis)adventures here.

Search This Blog

Blog Archive

Followers

Disclaimer

This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and certainly not those of anyone else, especially my family, friends or employer. If you decide to post a comment on my blog, please note that I retain the right to remove it. This will be done if I consider your comment to be rude, abusive, selling something or alike.